Africa is unique in terms of its transboundary water resources. Transboundary water (TBW) resources are especially important in Africa, where 63 international transboundary river basins cover about 62 per cent of the region’s land area and account for 90 per cent of the total surface water.

The Africa Development Bank’s “The Africa Water Vision for 2025” identifies multiplicity of transboundary water basins as a critical issue gripping the continent’s water resources. “A key water-resources issue in Africa is the multiplicity of international water basins in a climate of weak international water laws and weak regional cooperation on water-quality and water-quantity issues,” it says.

In a recent study, Sophie de Bruin, Researcher in Environmental Change, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam along with three water system researchers from IHE Delft, Utrecht University and Wageningen University & Research, came up with three possible futures regarding conflict risk in global transboundary river basins.

“Our study projects that if nothing substantially changes in how transboundary river basins are managed and with climate change worsening, 920 million people will live in very high to high conflict-risk basins by 2050,” Sophie wrote on the findings. “If nations improve water use, strengthen cooperation and do more to prevent or mitigate conflict, this number drops to 536 million,” the study said.

Download the State of Africa’s Environment 2024” report free here.

“In Africa, this number includes people living in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger. It also includes those in Mozambique, Malawi, Benin and Togo,” found the study. Africa especially faces more risks of conflicts as “several basins face extra risks like high variability of water flows and limited water availability. There is also a dependence of downstream countries on upstream ones.”

Sophie and her co-researchers specifically mentioned the tensions in the Nile over Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam. In this situation, the dire state of Africa’s rivers is a warning sign for the future. The volume of water in Africa’s major rivers decreased in 2021 compared to the average in the preceding two decades, according to the first "State of Global Water Resources" from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and published in November 2022. The water storage levels in the river basins, however, have gone up since 2002, an anomaly compared to the rest of the world, said the WMO report. The water discharge of Niger, Volta, Nile and Congo rivers in 2021 was less than the average calculated from 2002-2020.

The water storage levels, also known as terrestrial water storage (TWS), in these river basins have gradually increased since 2002. The greatest improvement was observed in the Congo and Nile river basins. The water storage in southern African river basins of Zambezi and Orange had been above the normal, the report said.

These observations seem optimistic, but these river basins may witness a rise in temperature as a result of climate change, an earlier study warned. Most of this positive trend or increase has also resulted from an increase in TWS in a few hotspots, for example, in the Lake Victoria region. TWS was “above normal” and “much above normal” in central Africa and “below normal” and “much below normal” in North Africa and Madagascar. The pilot report was limited to stream flow conditions, terrestrial water storage as well as the crucial role and vulnerability of the cryosphere (snow and ice cover).

TWS has gone down in all other continents other than Africa from 2002-2021, the report found. But the trend in other parts of the continent might show a different direction, it flagged. But, this does not sound good for the continent. Water levels in Lake Victoria have been on the rise since October 2019 and have been at unprecedented heights. In Kenya, the floods in 2020 displaced at least 800,000 people. The flooded rivers had diverted huge volumes of water into Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake. In June 2021, the lake was at the highest levels observed in decades due to long-lasting, intense rainfall, showed the trends revealed by United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The rise in water storage in Lake Victoria due to intense rains was attributed to climate change. The report was published at a time when climate change is affecting the river flow regime and water storage of important rivers in Africa. It was launched in response to the call for accurate water data and information to guide discussions. But, WMO acknowledged the lack of timely accessibility and availability of verified hydrological data as a key challenge. For example, just 57 per cent (eight out of 14) of African WMO member nations monitor river discharge. In the Horn of Africa, drought has been listed among the high-impact extreme events. This contradicts the continental TWS increase at the pan-African scale, pointed out the report. This underscores the need for local assessments, as existing large local and subregional variability in changes cannot be related to continental trends, it said.

All Sub-Saharan countries share at least one international water basin. Thus water interdependency is high. For instance, the Nile basin has 10 riparian countries. In a few countries nearly all river water flows from another country, like in Egypt where most of its total flow originates from outside its borders. Similarly in Mauritania and Botswana, 95 and 94 per cent of total flow respectively come from outside the country borders. This also highlights the challenge of jointly managing the transboundary rivers.

After Europe, the Africa region has a significant number of water cooperation arrangements to manage transboundary rivers and lakes like the Lake Chad Basin Commission, the Niger Basin Authority, Senegal River Basin Development Organisation, Volta Basin Authority, and the Cubango Ovakango River Basin Commission.

Still, only one-third of the Sub-Saharan Africa countries sharing transboundary rivers have 90 per cent of their basins covered with operational arrangements. “Over half of the global population lives in transboundary river and lake basins, which, alongside aquifers, account for about 60 per cent of freshwater flows. However, more than half of the world’s 310 international river basins, and all but five transboundary aquifers, lack intergovernmental cooperative agreements. And it’s not just about international borders: freshwater resources are not only shared just between countries but also within countries, creating an additional layer of complexity for water governance,” said Saroj Kumar Jha, Global Director, Water Global Practice, World Bank.

(This article is excerpted from the “State of Africa’s Environment 2024” report. To read the full article, download the report free here)

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